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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1883 | 2 |
| 1884 | 3 |
| 1885 | 10 |
| 1886 | 5 |
| 1887 | 5 |
25 stories matching davis
- The Price of Admission: A 1887 Seattle Real Estate Crisis
When the city's housing shortage became so acute that a book dealer had to buy an entire printing business just to secure a roof over his head.
- Brutal Bare-Knuckle Prize Fight Ends in Foul
A local pugilist match on Pennsylvania Avenue ends in controversy after a fighter strikes his opponent while he is down.
- The Ghostly Note of Joe Davis
After his wife’s death in Oregon, a man jailed in Seattle took his own life in his prison cell, leaving behind a haunting, misspelled confession that claimed they had died for each other.
- The Depot Brawl: A Railway Scuffle Over Booze and Conduct
A barkeeper’s attempt to 'work' a drunken traveler off on a train descends into a violent, chaotic melee involving railroad men, heavy boots, and a crowd expecting a murder.
- A Theatrical Triumph in Old Seattle
Local audiences pack Frye's Opera House to witness a powerful performance of 'The Wages of Sin,' marking a high point for regional dramatic arts.
- The Expulsion at Carbonado
Armed mobs force Chinese laborers to flee the Carbonado mines as the Anti-Chinese movement sweeps through the Puget Sound region.
- The Great Chicken Crackdown of Tacoma
A local crime spree left Tacoma poultry-less until an arrest at a YMCA service broke the case.
- A Family Left Homeless in the Bitter Winter Chill
While the city debates local ordinances, a man in North Seattle forcibly evicted his own wife and children into the freezing cold.
- The Secretive Coal King of Seattle
James M. Colman is quietly opening the McCallister mine, signaling a new industrial play near Renton.
- The Great Tacoma Chicken Heist
A witness in the theft trial of a local gang describes how hundreds of chickens were lured and captured under the cover of darkness.
- The Political Price of Honest Dealing
A local land officer loses his position for resisting the 'land-grabbing' Northern Pacific Railroad, triggering a public petition to demand his reinstatement.
- The Lonely Death of James Kenney
A body pulled from the bay reveals a paper trail of unpaid wages and a life on the fringes of the Snoqualmie road.
- A Frontier Life Cut Short in Whatcom
A young immigrant settler is tragically killed in a logging accident, underscoring the dangers inherent in clearing the Washington wilderness.
- A Neighborhood Under Siege: The Fatal Feud of Fourth Street
A quiet funeral for Fred M. Hall masks a violent, month-long dispute between neighbors that ended in a fatal shooting and a town paralyzed by fear.
- The Siege of Tacoma: A City Divided by Hatred
While Seattleites marched through the rain to condemn Chinese residents, the city of Tacoma mobilized into an organized, exclusionary force that would soon see the forced removal of hundreds.
- The Last Train out of Carbonado
After miners descended on the coal camp to forcibly expel Chinese laborers, a group of workers recounted the indignity of their forced departure.
- A Night of Terror in Tacoma
A massive blaze sweeps through a bustling downtown block, consuming businesses and revealing the precarity of the city's early fire defenses.
- The Soaring Value of Seattle Dirt
A look at the rapid rise of local property values, as pioneer church lots worth a dollar reach thousands in gold.
- The Broken Promise of the University
A bitter civic dispute over why the territorial university moved from Port Townsend to Seattle, revealing 19th-century political maneuvering and broken handshakes.
- The Birth of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway
Before the boom, Seattle's civic leaders incorporated a grand, million-dollar vision to pierce the Cascades and connect the city to the interior.
- The Roadmaster's Gold Watch and the Mail Robber Who Came Back for More
Samuel Henry of the N.P.R.R. woke to find his watch gone and assumed it was a joke. A Tacoma marshal followed a hunch to a young man fresh out of the penitentiary — who confessed, sold the watch on Pacific Avenue, and then disappeared.
- The Con Artist of the Y.M.C.A.
A smooth-talking grifter exploited the goodwill of Seattle churchgoers by playing on his 'sick wife's' needs, until an umbrella heist landed him in the city jail.
- The Lumber Industry Consolidation at Port Hadlock
A major expansion of the Washington Mill Company signals a shift in the regional timber market as operators consolidate production to cut costs.
- The Labor Agitator's 'Foreigner' Problem
In an 1885 letter to the editor, a frustrated Seattle employer challenges the hypocrisy of the local anti-Chinese movement by questioning the nativist bias against European immigrants.
- The Preacher Who Turned Court Into a Prayer Meeting
A local street preacher, arrested for his public fervor, turns the tables on the magistrate by forcing a courtroom to its knees.